Obama gun control plan doubles as $4 billion state bailout

As John Hinderaker noted at The Corner yesterday, the gun control plan rolled out by President Obama yesterday is really just a bunch of policy “retreads” that liberals have been itching to make law long before the Sandy Hook tragedy. And as American Action Forum Director of Fiscal Policy Gordon Gray notes, the biggest spending ticket item in Obama’s gun package is actually recycled from his 2011 stimulus bill.

Obama’s American Jobs Act included $5 billion that “would support the hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel.” This is almost identical to the $4 billion in Obama’s gun control plan which calls on Congress “to act on the Administration’s $4 billion proposal to help keep 15,000 cops on the street in cities and towns across the country.”

In 2011, Republicans called this $4 billion for local law enforcement a “blue state bailout.” And that is exactly what it still is today: a way for the Obama administration to funnel resources to big blue states on the brink of fiscal collapse like California and Illinois.

Not that Republicans really needed another reason to oppose Obama’s gun control plan.